Zoo News Digest is the longest established and most widely read listing of current 'zoo' related news on the internet. It notes 'real' events of interest to people working within the zoo industry. By a Zoo Professional for Zoo Professionals and other interested parties. The Digest includes comments and notification of courses and events.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Zoo News Digest 11th - 25th January 2015 (ZooNews 905)

I was updated on the Gorilla in Dubai Zoo (Thanks Tim), it is still there and well. Must have been hiding away on my visit. Learned too that the Dubai Safari is developing fast and is most likely to become operational towards the end of this year.

Going by the images I have seen lately on the internet there are far more Orangutans in Dubai than I previously thought. This is very disturbing considering that officially there are none. There also appears to be a connection to the Orangutans being sold in Russia. Is this going to be another fad to take over from the Cheetahs. Do these people really believe that they are legal, captive bred imports? Would they really care to know that their mothers were butchered just so they can take the babies and dress them up like funny little people? It is somewhat appropriate that Dr. Jane Goodall is in Dubai at the moment talking on keeping exotics as pets. I wonder though if the right people will listen? More likely they will invite her along to meet their 'pets'...some people just don't get it.

Ark Avilon Zoo in the Philippines has fallen out of my favour (They were one of the better Philippines Zoos) now that they have started the same silly games with their Orangutans....see below.

One wonders where it is all going to end. Other Philippine zoos have Orangutans now as well. I don't doubt that they will have the correct paperwork because providing you know which palms to grease you will get it. It doesn't make it right, or legal, though. On the 31st December 2010 the Avilon Zoo held 24 Bornean Orangutans. One wonders where they all are now.

A feeling of
accomplishment crept over me this week when I learned that my HubPageshad reached two
million views. It has taken a while but then I do publish, in the main, on a
rather specialised subject and that is zoos. I do write on other things however
and my top three unrelated to zoos articles are:

LinkedIn continues to do well also (over 2,500 connections). It is another way to get the 'Good' zoo message out...amongst other things. I had a message from them this week congratulating me on the 17th anniversary of ZooNews Digest. This actually refers to the Yahoo Group which continues. I reckon the 17 years is a little bit out because it was in existence before that but under another name. Migrating over to Yahoo made management so much easier.

ZooNews Digest on
Facebook continues to go from strength to strength with nearly 17,000 'Likes'
and a fluctuating weekly reach of over 33,000. I did lose a few like's this past week but it was no great loss as the numbers were quickly made up again and overtaken. There is a percentage of the Facebook generation who will continually misconstrue postings and very quickly condemn....pity is they don't actually think, which is a lot of what I am about. I definitely don't lose any sleep over a threat to unlike me.My personal life continues to be as complicated as it has been this past ten years or so. Sometimes I begin to wonder what 'ordinary' was like...but I definitely don't yearn for it.Off to the US in just a few days now.

The wildlife expert,
Dr Jane Goodall, warned the public to forgo domesticating wild animals as an
alarming number of cases are being reported where their owners incur injuries.

Goodall, PhD DBE,
primatologist, is visiting the UAE and shedding light on different aspects of
the rising trend of domesticating wild animals in homes. In an exclusive
interview with The Gulf Today, she said that chimpanzees are wild animals and
cannot be domesticated.

“When they are small
they are cute. They can be dressed up and they are very loving if treated well.
They are clever and can learn much from humans, like drinking from a cup,
riding a tricycle, and so on. But when they reach adolescence, they can become very
dangerous; at 8 years old, they are stronger than us. They are unpredictable
and can suddenly lose their tempers,” she added.

According to
information from different parts of the world, she said that a woman had her
face and both hands bitten off. Other wild pet owners have been injured. To get
a baby chimp, the mother has often been killed. Members of their community who
come to the rescue, often the top ranking male, are likely to be shot also.
Many infants are wounded and die before they ever reach the market. Chimpanzees
once numbered 2 million in Africa. Today, the maximum number is 300,000, spread
over 21 countries, many in isolated groups in fragmented forest patches that
will not survive in the long run due to inbreeding.

Describing the
behaviour of the animals, the expert pointed out that when a pet becomes too
strong, what will happen to him or her? They will either be shut in a small
cage for life or sent to a bad zoo. They can never be successfully integrated
into an existing captive group – the

An endangered bonobo
primate has disappeared from the Jambo Exotic Park in Armenia’s Tzoraghbyur
village.

The park’s founder,
Artyom Vardanyan, claims that the animal, listed in the international Red Book
of endangered species, died last month.

All such animals can
only be imported with special permits and must be kept in special conditions.

The importer of the
bonobo and many other endangered animals is a company called Zoo Fauna Art. A
criminal case of contraband was launched against company director
ArturKhachatryan a year ago and is still on-going.

Hetq asked the
ministry of finance to provide information about the criminal investigation and
whether it has revealed any wrongdoing.

In reply, the
ministry said that inquiries have been made to authorities in Guinea and the
Congo in order to finalize the preliminary phase of the case but that it hasn’t
received any answers as yet.

ArturAfrikyan, first
deputy to the president of the State Revenue Committee, provided us with a list
of the animals imported to and exported from Armenia between 2010 and 2013 with
CITES permits. According to that list, in addition to two bonobos (Pan panicus)
imported to Armenia in 2011, another two were imported in 2012 and not
exported. Furthermore, f

Apart from President
Paul Kruger and President Nelson Mandela, only one other South African has a
street named after him in an overseas city, Nic Anicic, a Benoni businessman.
The street is not just any street in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, it is in
the Belgrade Zoo.

Nicifor Anicic came
to South Africa more than 40 years ago from a little village, Prijepolje, in
the spectacular and mountainous part of South Eastern Serbia and established
Anicic Heavy Engineering where one would find the 76 year-old before his staff
arrive in the mornings.

He kept his links
with the country of his birth and several years ago, don

One of the oldest
Pacific white-sided dolphins in the Chicago area was euthanized Friday at the
city’s Shedd Aquarium.

Tique — a
30-year-old dolphin that had been at the Shedd since the opening of the
aquarium’s Abbot Oceanarium in 1991 — was euthanized after suffering from a
deteriorating kidney disease for years, according to Andrea Rodgers, a
spokeswoman for the aquarium.

“It is a very sad
day for Shedd Aquarium,” said Tim Binder, vice president of collection planning
at Shedd. “We’ve had the tremendous privilege to care for, and learn from,
Tique for more than two decades.”

Tique, which means
waterborne in Tinglit, an aboriginal language in Alaska, was collected in
southern California and was one of the first dolphins to live at Shedd. Out

Researchers at the
University of California Santa Cruz have claimed that a sea otter conceived in
the wild has been born in captivity for the first time ever.

A university
spokesman said the birth took place on November 26 at UC Santa Cruz's Long
Marine Laboratory, but it was ensured that the news did not disseminate widely
to prevent the species from excessive exposure to people.

The Monterey Bay
Aquarium said a rescue team had saved the life of the pup's mother, Clara, and
it was later determined that she had become too accustomed to survive on

The winners of the
annual Giant Panda Zoo Awards were revealed on Friday at the Belgian panda zoo,
Pairi Daiza.

According to the
results, Hao Hao from Pairi Daiza received the gold award for favorite panda
outside of China. The ZooParc de Beauval in France received the gold award for
favorite panda enclosure outside of China.

In addition, Chinese
president Xi Jinping and King Philippe of Belgium's visit to Hao Hao and Xing
Hui at Pairi Daiza was awarded a first prize for panda moment of the year.

From December 12,
2014 until January 18, 2015, panda fans from around the world were invited to
vote for their favorite pandas, people, institutions, organizations, and zoos.
There were 258,490 votes cast in ten categories during the one-month online contest.

"The third
edition of the Giant Panda Zoo Awards was again a huge success," said
Belgian panda aficionado and award founder Jeroen Jacobs. Most zoos with giant
pandas in their collections were very proud and enthusiastic about
participating and to promote their nominees, he said.

According to Jacobs,
the awards are the time of year for the general public to speak up and support
those who have worked very hard in the panda conservation field.

A zookeeper
suspected of torturing a South China tiger cub, which enjoys first-grade
protection at state level, has been fired in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi
province, Qianjiang Evening News reported.

In a video that went
viral online, a man is seen grabbing the neck of a cub, which is the size of a
kitten, suspending the animal in the air, and punching it in the head when it
tries to escape.

The suspect is also
filmed holding the cub's feet tightly and slapping or flipping its face until
it can't move. In another scene, the keeper allows the tiger to fall on the
ground while feeding it improperly.

Kuang Huaming, a
manager at the zoo, has confirmed the authenticity of the video and says the
keeper involved has been fired.

The zoo currently
hosts 18 adult South China tigers and one cub.

Kuang said the
one-month-old cub has received a full checkup and is deemed to be healthy.

When it recently
came to light that Zimbabwe is planning to export dozens of baby elephants,
conservation organizations, elephant experts, and concerned citizens expressed
horror and condemnation.

Such export is legal
under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES), the global treaty organization that sets rules for and
monitors trade in live animals.

Clear facts around
Zimbabwe's planned export are hard to come by, but CITES confirms that a number
of captive elephants are destined for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Various
news reports say China and France are also interested in importing some of the
young elephants.

National Geographic
asked John Scanlon, secretary general of CITES, a post he's held since 2010, to
clarify the role of the convention.

Speaking from his
home in Geneva, the headquarters of CITES, Scanlon explained that his
priorities are to represent the convention globally, to enhance the depth and
breadth of partner agencies (such as Interpol) that help implement CITES's
policies, and to effectively manage the secretariat itself.

The environment
ministry has decreed the shutdown of a dolphinarium that operated without a
license for almost a decade in the seaside resort town of Rimini on Italy's
eastern coast, Italy's Anti-Vivisection League (LAV) reported Thursday.
"This is the first dolphinarium to be shut down by ministry decree in
Italy," the animal rights group said. "This puts a final stop to any
attempt on the part of the facility to keep

Taiwanese
authorities toughened animal cruelty laws on Friday in the wake of the death of
a performing hippopotamus that once starred in a popular soap opera.

The new rules were
drawn up after A Ho, a male hippo who regularly performed for spectators at a
private zoo, died last month after breaking a leg and sustaining other injuries
while being transported from the site.

The legislation,
dubbed by the local media as the "A Ho clause", doubles the maximum
fine for intentionally causing serious injury or death to animals to $32 200 in
addition to up to one year in prison, official

Siberian Tigers are
designated as natural monuments, and the non-disclosure of births and deaths of
these animals is to be punished under a new law on wild animals. Since the
grace period of the said law is due to terminate this July, the Nakdong River Basin

Imagine strolling
alongside a sandy shoreline as mammoth killer whales no further away than 20
feet glide through shallow water, its perimeter lined with plants and rocky
formations. That’s just the teaser for an interactive experience that will
ultimately guide visitors to SeaWorld along a 40-foot descent into a wide-open
underwater vista of orcas swimming and frolicking overhead.

Blue World, as it’s
being called, is a $300 million initiative that SeaWorld Entertainment hopes
will captivate and educate its patrons while recognizing it is unlikely to
silence its harshest critics.

Although former CEO
Jim Atchison officially left his post last week amid a planned reorganization
and months-long search for a new leader, the Orlando, Fla.-based company is
still forging ahead with its previously announced plan to double the size of
its orca tanks, commencing construction later this year at the San Diego marine
park. Construction of similar tank projects at SeaW

Results from two
undercover investigations at roadside zoos — including one in central Oklahoma
— resulted in allegations of inhumane treatment, according to a national animal
protection group.

The alleged abuse
includes inhumane of tiger cubs exploited for photographic opportunities,
indiscriminate breeding of tigers, rampant trade in cubs for public handling
and dumping of the cubs once they were no longer profitable. The Humane Society
of the United States conducted the investigations at Tiger Safari in Oklahoma
and Natural Bridge Zoo in Virginia. These roadside zoos allow members of the
public to pet, feed, pose and play with baby tigers for a fee.

The investigations
documented the business of using infant tigers for public photo shoots and
other moneymaking events — fees ranged from $50 to $1,000 per session,
according to HSUS reports.

Video footage shows
distress and handling which HSUS alleges is abusive. In the Tiger Safari video,
the owner tells employees not to "tell the USDA a f.... thing."

HSUA alleges that
tiger cubs were forcibly separated from their mothers during birth and the
first few months of their lives were dictated exclusively by public handling
schedules. Further allegations include that cubs who were tired, overheated,
thirsty, hungry or sick were required to sit still for a parade of paying
customers.

The investigations
also provided a snapshot of the unfettered breeding of big cats for the
exploitation of their cubs, the resulting surplus of adult big cats, and the
animal welfare and public safety implications when large cubs are discarded
after ceasing to be profitable, HSUS alleges.

“Our investigations revealed never-before seen
abuse, neglect, and the overbreeding that goes on behind the scenes at these
tiger cub handling operations," Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The
HSUS said. "We must put an end to this dangerous and cruel business.”

The HSUS alleges
that it documented:

At Tiger Safari, one
tiger cub’s diet was so insufficient that the facility’s veterinarian expressed
concern about improper development of the infant’s leg bones. At one point, the
cub was purposefully fed inappropriately in the belief that it would make him
more tractable during photo ses

Poor captive wild
animal welfare is globally prevalent and the challenge to make improvements is
vast; addressing wild animal welfare concerns within captivity is, and will,
remain complicated. From assessment challenges, cultural diversity and
differing attitudes, to changing global demands and expectations, via the
complexity of meeting a variety of specific species needs, it is only
complicated further by the ever questioned ethical conundrum of keeping wild
animals in captivity.

Let's assume for
now, rightly or wrongly, zoos and aquariums (including private collections and
un-regulated sanctuaries) will continue to successfully exist worldwide. In
doing so, there is a real fear that the gap between the "good" and "bad"
zoos for animal welfare will continue to grow. The better zoos are already
investing in, and developing, better animal welfare practices. They are also
recognising animal sentience as a growing player in decision processes and
adopting responsible actions based on the well-being and needs of the animals
in their care.

On the one hand,
these improvements can contribute to driving forward better protective
legislation, guidance and policies in poorer wild collections. On the other,
while attempting to imitate the better zoos, sub-standard collections could
inadvertently cause further suffering owing to limited resources, expertise and
an incapability to manage complex species.

International
reporting and in particular the power of social media continues to highlight
some of these worst capt

Tiger attacks in the
United States are always dramatic news—there were 27 reported between 1990 and
2006, with seven people and most of the tigers killed. But maulings aren’t the
only problem arising from the perhaps surprising fact that there are more captive
tigers in the U.S. than there are wild tigers on earth.

Conservationists
estimate that about 3,200 wild tigers remain around the world, while there are
some 5,000 tigers in captivity in the U.S., according to the World Wildlife
Fund. Even that number is probably low, says Carole Baskin, the founder of Big
Cat Rescue, an animal sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, because reporting is “based
on the honor system, and we’re dealing with a lot of people that are really
dishonorable.” Edward J. Grace, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s deputy
assistant director for law enforcement, estimates that the nation is home to
more than 10,000 captive tigers. Only about 350 of those, says the WWF, are
held in facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

For the thousands of
tigers in private hands, from those in big-top circuses and roadside
attractions to others in backyard dens, the regulations are inconsistent at be

The mystery of who's
been dropping a load at night outside the porcupine pen at the Ramat Gan Safari
Park has been solved by an industrious zookeeper making the rounds one night:
it's a wild porcupine coming to visit his lady love.

The story starts
eight years ago with a tiny baby porcupine rescued by passersby after her
mother had been run over. They brought the wee thing to the Safari Park. The
park people decided she couldn't return to nature, named her Dorit, and have
housed her in a pen ev

Normally, I like to
write Middle Flipper events about completely different stories or individual
animals. You know, to keep the content
fresh. But due to recent events that have
since transpired, I figured you’d all appreciate an update on little Chopper
dearest.

Unsurprisingly,
Chopper lost some interest in lodging his toys under the docks. I say unsurprisingly because as trainers, we
all know about desensitization. At some
point, putting EEDs* in hard-for-humans-to-reach-places was going to get kind
of lame and boring. And if you’re not an
animal trainer, but an animal lover and/or parent, then you know how easily
kids get over toys, games, or movies they once could barely exist without. I mean, even in high school I watched
Monsters Inc about eleven times....in theaters.
And then when it came out on DVD I watched it every day for at least a
month solid, mostly because my mental age has never progressed past 10 and also
because Pixar is amazing. Obviously, I
ha

Four tigers — two
rescued/captured in the wild and two born in captivity — have been shifted to
the conservation, rescue and rehabilitation centre set up by the Mysore zoo at
Koorgalli on the outskirts of the city. One of the reasons for shifting the tigers
is the space constraint at the zoo hospital and the Tiger House (where tigers
are kept for public display).

Usually, animals —
mainly carnivores such as tigers — that have been rescued or captured from the
wild are housed in a specially-built enclosure at the zoo hospital. In the
absence of an independent rescue centre, the animals were kept at the zoo. The
rescue centre was therefore proposed as the zoo lacked space to accommodate
animals brought in for rehabilitation.

Asian Elephants are part of the Wild Asia theme area besides many other animal species at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. The historic barn, designed after a Thai temple, was renovated for the requirements of keeping a breeding group of Asian elephants. Visitors can explore the barn and exhibitions in the "Asian village" on biology and cultural history of as well as threats to Asian elephants.

stories every day as
well as hundreds of stories from the past few years.

Rob

During this last quarter of the year 2014, WAR has been
continued its tireless efforts on all three programmes
including conservation, law enforcement and wildlife
education. The Cu Chi and Hon Me Wildlife Rescue
Stations have rescued a number of wildlife and upgraded
its facilities for more effective rescue activities. Dugong
conservation efforts including Dugong Festival 2014 have
been implemented on Phu Quoc Island. The SOS
Exhibition has been travelling to secondary schools in Ho
Chi Minh City.
In the year 2014, WAR received continuous supports
from companies and individuals. This newsletter is
dedicated to WAR’s supporters and staff.
Hope you enjoy and thank you very much.
Mr. Nguyen Vu Khoi – WAR’s CEO.http://www.wildlifeatrisk.org/new/upload/download/newsletter.What%20up%20Issue28%20Dec%2014-1.pdf

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